by Lois Winston
Zack turned into Sunnyside’s driveway, bypassed the guest parking lot, and pulled right up to the front door. “I guess we’ll soon find out.”
“They’re all waiting for you in the library,” said April when Zack and I rushed into the lobby. “Down that hall, last door on your right. Never had a murder here before,” she added, “but, girl, your mother-in-law couldn’t have chosen a finer pain in the ass to eliminate. Some of the residents want to pin a medal on her.”
I stopped short. “Are you saying Lyndella Wegner was murdered?”
“Apparently.”
“But I saw her this morning. She died in her sleep. I reported her death to you.”
“Rumor has it the medical examiner claims otherwise. The Union County crime unit is doing their CSI thing in her room right now.”
I sprinted the rest of the way down the hall to the library. Zack sprinted alongside me. Officer Fogarty stood in the hall, blocking the library entrance, but stepped aside to allow me and Zack entry.
Bookshelves lined the walls of the library. A circular seating area with burgundy leather upholstered chairs and two sofas filled the Oriental carpet in the center of the small room. Lucille sat ramrod straight in her wheelchair alongside one of the sofas.
Shirley Hallstead, still dressed in her navy power suit, was perched on the edge of one of the chairs but jumped to her feet as I entered the room. Officer Harley stood off to one side.
A rotund man in a pair of light brown trousers, white dress shirt, and dark brown solid tie stood towering over my mother-in-law. His shirt sleeves were rolled to just below his elbows, his tie loosened.
“Well, look who’s here,” said my mother-in-law, jutting her chin in my direction. “This is all your fault, Anastasia.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Shirley pointed an index finger at Lucille and in a voice filled with anger said, “Your mother-in-law killed Lyndella Wegner.”
“I did no such thing,” said Lucille. “You’re all trying to frame me.”
“We have a witness who heard you threaten to strangle her,” said Shirley. “Now Lyndella’s dead. Strangled. Explain that, why don’t you?”
“Lies!” said Lucille.
“That’s enough,” said the stranger. “I’ll do the questioning if you don’t mind, Ms. Hallstead.” He turned to Harley. “Escort Ms. Hallstead to her office. I’ll be with her shortly.”
“I have a right to stay here,” said Shirley. “Sunnyside is my responsibility.”
“And murder is mine,” said the man. “Now leave or I’ll arrest you for interfering with an investigation.”
Shirley jerked away from Harley when he reached for her arm. With her head held high, her lips pursed tightly, she stalked out of the room, Harley following closely on her heels. The stranger closed the door behind them. Then he turned to me. “Mrs. Pollack?”
I nodded. “And you are?”
He flashed a badge. “Detective Spader. Union County.” He nodded in Zack’s direction. “This here your mother-in-law’s lawyer?”
“He’s nobody,” said Lucille. “Just someone she’s taken up with to sully my son’s memory.”
I glared at her. “You might want to dial down the insults a bit, Lucille. It looks like you need all the help you can get right now.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You didn’t have Officer Harley call me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because the detective here wants to charge you with murder?”
“He doesn’t have a shred of evidence. My lawyers will make mincemeat out of him.”
“What lawyers?”
“The ones my sisters will hire for me.”
“Are those the same sisters who offered you a place to live after your apartment building burned to the ground?”
She had no quick retort for that. However, knowing the Daughters of the October Revolution, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they kept some old geezer of a commie lawyer on retainer. Lucille and her fellow sisters had faced many a judge over the years. At this very moment the other Daughters were probably fumigating the mothball stench from the guy’s fifty-year-old suit.
Detective Spader turned to Zack. “I’m going to have to ask you to step outside, sir.”
“You okay with that?” Zack asked me.
“Sure.”
As soon as Zack left, I confronted Detective Spader in as non-confrontational a manner as I could muster. “Exactly what happened here, Detective, and why do you think my mother-in-law had a hand in it?”
He answered my question with one of his own. “Am I correct that you reported Mrs. Wegner’s death, ma’am?”
I outlined the events of the morning for him. “She appeared to have died in her sleep. She looked quite peaceful, lying on her back, eyes closed, the quilt pulled up to her chin. I even remember a hint of smile on her face.”
“No signs of a struggle?”
“Absolutely not. At first I thought she was sleeping. It wasn’t until
I felt for a pulse that I realized she was dead. Why do you believe she was murdered?”
“The funeral director found bruising on her neck. As the law requires, he called in the medical examiner, who ruled her death a homicide and contacted the police.”
“You think she was strangled?”
“She was definitely strangled. With the scarf that was tied around her neck.”
“Not by me,” said Lucille.
“I remember the scarf,” I said. “The ends were draped on top of her quilt.”
“You didn’t think it odd that she’d wear a scarf to bed when it’s so hot in this place?”
“Not really. It wasn’t the kind of scarf you wear for warmth, more as an accessory. Besides, from the little I’d gotten to know her, Lyndella loved to show off. The scarf was one I saw her crocheting yesterday. She probably tried it on when she finished it and forgot to take it off before going to bed.”
“Or the killer grabbed it and tied it around her neck,” he said.
“I don’t think the killer is my mother-in-law.”
“And why is that?”
“She doesn’t have the strength to cut her own food right now, let alone strangle someone as strong as Lyndella.”
Detective Spader’s bushy salt and pepper eyebrows rose up toward what was left of his hairline. “The deceased was ninety-eight years old. What makes you think she was strong?”
“She shook hands like a politician.”
My explanation elicited a chuckle he tried to cover up with a cough. “Your mother-in-law’s infirmity aside, you’d be surprised at the strength adrenalin can produce under the right circumstances.”
“Do you have any evidence pointing to Lucille as the killer?”
“All we have right now is one of the other Sunnyside residents who claims hearing your mother-in-law shouting yesterday morning that she was going to strangle Mrs. Wegner if she didn’t shut up.”
I turned to Lucille. “I told you to lower your voice, didn’t I?”
Lucille harrumphed. “If you’d taken me home like I demanded, he’d be out searching for the real killer instead of trying to railroad me.”
“Are you confirming your mother-in-law threatened Mrs. Weg-ner yesterday?”
“Not exactly.”
The detective let loose a deep sigh and loosened his tie further. “Explain.”
I did. When I finished, I asked, “Are you arresting Lucille?”
“Not yet. I don’t have enough evidence.”
“And you won’t find any,” said Lucille, “because there’s none to find. You’re harassing an innocent citizen. I’ll have your badge before this is over.”
Detective Spader glared at Lucille. Another strangulation might occur at any momen
t if she didn’t keep her mouth shut. “Is she always this combative?” he asked.
“You mean you don’t know?” With her record I figured the Westfield PD had Lucille’s image plastered over their firing range targets.
“I recently transferred over from Essex County. Docs told me the stress would kill me sooner than a bullet. I’ve got another year before I can retire and figured I stood a better chance of making it here in Union County.”
“There are plenty of homicides in Elizabeth and Plainfield,” I said, reminding him that although Westfield might be considered a bucolic oasis, other parts of Union County certainly weren’t.
He shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect. Still beats the streets of Newark. I just never expected my first homicide investigation to be in Westfield. There hasn’t been a murder in this town in more than a dozen years.”
I imagined the stress of working in Newark would suck the life out of anyone. Those ruptured capillaries on the detective’s nose told me he drank too much. His girth certainly didn’t help. With a paunch that hung well over his belt buckle, he looked either nine months pregnant or like a heart attack waiting to happen. I also took note of the pack of cigarettes poking out of his shirt pocket and wondered if he’d live to enjoy that retirement.
“Have Harley and Fogarty fill you in about my mother-in-law,” I said.
“Those two? They’re out to get me,” said Lucille. “It’s all one huge conspiracy to frame me because of my political views. Freedom of speech in this country is laughable.”
“And what might those political views be, ma’am?” asked Spader.
I answered for Lucille, figuring short and sweet trumped her going off on one of her anti-government rants. “She’s a communist.”
In a sotto voce voice Spader asked, “Anybody ever clue her in about the Berlin Wall falling and the Soviet Union dissolving?”
“Don’t speak as if I’m not in the room, and don’t you dare imply I’m crazy,” said Lucille. “I’m saner than you are! And I know far more about what’s going on in this country than you and the rest of your mindless blue brethren.”
Short and sweet obviously hadn’t worked. “Lucille, I don’t think this is the time or place for—”
“It’s always the time and place. That’s the trouble with you, Anastasia. With all of you. Does anyone really care that some prattling dimwit is dead? There are far more important things going on in this country that should be investigated instead of wasting taxpayer money on some slutty trollop.”
Talk about a non sequitur. Spader again raised those bushy salt and pepper eyebrows of his, this time even higher than before, and directed his question to Lucille. “Is there something you’d like to tell me, ma’am?”
Lucille once more jutted her chin toward me. “I tried to tell you this morning, but you weren’t interested.”
I remembered Lucille saying something about how I wouldn’t believe what had gone on in her room last night, but I didn’t have time to listen to another one of her complaints. “Tell us now, Lucille.”
“This place is a den of iniquity. I was awake most of the night, thanks to that floozy, her bouncing bedsprings, and all the moaning and groaning going on.”
Spader stared in utter disbelief. “Are you saying the victim, a ninety-eight-year-old woman, had a sexual encounter last night?”
“No,” said Lucille. “I’m saying she had more than one.”
seven
“I agree with the detective,” said Zack on our ride back to the house. “Lucille probably dreamed the whole thing up. Didn’t they give her a sleeping pill last night?”
Even though Detective Spader had asked Zack to leave the room, he and Officer Fogarty, as well as Officer Harley when he returned from depositing Shirley in her office, were able to hear every word of our conversation. No wonder some passing resident overheard Lucille threaten to strangle Lyndella yesterday.
“I’d have to ask about her meds. I’ve heard some sleeping pills can cause extremely vivid dreams. Right now, I don’t know what to believe. Her roommate did brag about sex keeping her young.”
“But all night long?” Zack laughed. “No way!”
“Not to mention at her age. If it’s true, she’s like those little old lady nymphomaniacs in The Producers.”
“Those characters sprang from the extremely fertile imagination of Mel Brooks. I doubt women in their nineties have any sex drive at all, let alone an insatiable one.”
Zack had a point. A woman’s sex drive stems from hormone production. At her age, Lyndella’s body couldn’t possibly be producing estrogen, could it? Her body most likely hadn’t produced any estrogen for at least forty years. No estrogen, no urges.
“Maybe Lucille only thought the sex went on all night. If it even happened at all. She either dreamed it all up, or she drifted in and out of sleep and didn’t have an accurate grasp of the passage of time.”
“Lucille doesn’t have an accurate grasp of many things,” said Zack, “especially reality.”
“I don’t believe she had anything to do with Lyndella’s death, though. Do you?”
“No.”
“And she might be a huge albatross around my neck, but I can’t sit back and watch her convicted of a crime she didn’t commit.”
Zack slowed for a red light, turned toward me, and placed his hand over mine. “Please tell me you’re not going to get involved in another murder investigation.”
“If I don’t, who will?”
“Let the police do their job. That’s why you pay those exorbitant taxes. Besides, do I need to remind you that you were nearly killed last time you decided to play Sherlock Holmes? And the time before that?”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Famous last words,” he muttered. “I’m not going to be able to stop you, am I?”
“Probably not.”
“Will you at least let me help you this time?”
“Actually, there is something I’d like your help with, Zack.”
“Name it.”
“Do you think Patricia would do a little record digging for me?”
Patricia Tierney is Zack’s ex-wife and an assistant DA in Manhattan. She’d have access to all sorts of documents, including New York City marriage certificates and divorce records.
Zack and Patricia have the friendliest divorce I’ve ever come across. Her twin daughters call him Uncle Zacky. Patricia also thinks I’m the best thing to happen to Zack since the last time the Mets won a World Series.
“What kind of records in Manhattan would help prove Lucille didn’t commit murder?”
“None that I know of, but there’s another mystery brewing, and I think it’s beyond time I learned the truth.”
“About what?”
“Lucille’s past.”
“Does this have anything to do with Karl’s half-brother showing up at your door? And speaking of which, when did you find out he had one?”
I checked my watch. “About two hours ago.”
“You sure the guy isn’t trying to scam you?”
“Not unless he’s found a way to replicate Karl’s DNA. The resemblance is uncanny.”
Zack chuckled. “That ought to freak Lucille out.”
“In more ways than one.” I recapped my brief encounter with Ira, telling Zack about the letter and photo. “Lucille has always claimed that Isidore was abducted. Looks like she fabricated the entire story.”
“She probably talked herself into believing it a long time ago because she couldn’t accept the truth.”
“Especially if she kicked him out, hoping he’d come groveling back to her. She’s the reason Karl grew up without a father.”
If Karl had been raised in a typical two-parent household, would his life have turned out differently? Would Lady Luck, that demanding and financially draining mistress of his
, ever have entered his life? I’d never know, and speculating would only drive me crazy.
When we turned down our street, I saw Ira’s gray minivan still parked in front of my house. Didn’t the guy have a wife and kids who expected him home for dinner? And speaking of dinner …
I guess I could forget about that relaxing soak in the tub. The two bikes leaning up against the garage doors told me Alex and Nick had arrived home.
I turned to Zack as he parked the car. “When you rooted around in my freezer yesterday, did you find any hamburger patties and bags of rolls? I have a feeling Mama invited Ira to join us for dinner.”
“Should be enough,” he said. We both reluctantly exited the comfort of the air-conditioned car for the brutal outdoor heat. “Want me to fire up the grill?”
“You don’t have to join us.”
He laughed. “Are you kidding? And miss out on the entertainment?”
“Very funny.”
Zack grew serious, grabbed my hand, and squeezed gently. “You look like you need a buffer tonight.”
“What I need is a week in Aruba.”
“That can be arranged.”
I closed my eyes, and envisioned a white sandy beach, gently lapping waves, and a brilliant blue sky. I wish. “No it can’t,” I said, reluctantly opening my eyes. “I’ve used up all my vacation for the year, and now I don’t even have my weekends free for the next several months.”
“Then you’re just going to have to settle for the next best thing.”
“What’s that?”
“A burger flipper tonight.”
Zack could flip my burgers any time he wanted, but I bit down on my tongue to keep from saying so. I’d vowed not to rely on any man ever again. How many times did I have to remind myself ? So instead, I smiled, squeezed his hand back, and headed into the house.
I found Mama, Alex, Nick, and Ira gathered around the kitchen table, all munching from a large bowl of popcorn. Catherine the Great batted a popped kernel around the floor. Ralph perched on Alex’s shoulder. I assumed Mephisto was snoring somewhere, hopefully not on my bed.
“Hey Mom, we’ve got an uncle,” said Alex as he tossed another piece of popcorn to Ralph. “And three cousins. Cool, huh?”